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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Different Pace For Chase
Carl Edwards is trying to make sure he stays in the top 12 in points...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted June 19, 2010   Sonoma, CA
Carl Edwards is 10th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Just 15 races into the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, the championship hopefuls are gearing up for the second season, the Chase for the Sprint Cup, which begins in early September.

Already, the top teams are building their Chase cars and planning their strategies for the final 10-race battle. But where each driver is in points right now dictates their strategy over the final 11 races of NASCAR’s regular season: How much experimenting a team will do and how many chances a driver will take, vs. how much that driver will points race.

The bottom line is, the higher up a driver his in points, the more flexibility he has over the next 11 races. Conversely, drivers on the bubble have to be much more cautious.

“We’re trying to just lock ourselves into the Chase,” said Carl Edwards, who enters Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway 10th in points. “If we were farther up in points, we wouldn’t be thinking about that, but the farther back you are, the more you think about it – the earlier you think about it. So, for our Aflac team, that’s the first hurdle we have to get over to have what we would determine or consider a successful year, so we’re on it. We’re thinking points.”

He isn’t the only one in that position.

“For us right now, we're working really hard on trying to make gains in our competition level and hopefully peak as the Chase gets ready to start,” said Mark Martin, on the bubble right now in 12th place. “If we hopefully make the Chase and be ready to peak then and it's not like we're holding back right now to do that. We're working hard, and I think it's everybody's goal in the garage to do that. That's what we're trying to do.”
Carl Edwards is mindful of the looming Chase for the Sprint Cup. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

One driver who finds himself in the unfamiliar position of having to play it conservative is four-time defending Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who won three of the first five races of the season and led the points standings after nine races. But three finishes of 31st or worse in a five-race stretch dropped Johnson to seventh in points and forced him to be a little more conservative lately.

A fifth-place finish at Pocono and a sixth at Michigan have given Johnson a little more breathing room, but not as much as he would like.

“The last two weekends have been more about stopping the bleeding and that would be losing so many points and slipping further and further down closer to that 12th-place cutoff,” said Johnson. “We did a good job the last two weeks in not taking unnecessary risks. I drove within my means and didn't stick it into the fence or anything. So, from that standpoint we are making sure we are collecting points.”

At the other end of the top 12, it’s a wholly different mindset right now.


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